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PENITENTIAL TEARS; 

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A CRY FROM THE DUST, 



THE THIRTY -ONE 



PROSTRATED A>iD iULVERIKED BY THK HAND OF 



HORACE MANN, 




SECRETARY, &c. 

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BOSTON: 

C. STIMPSON, 106, WASHINGTON STREET. 



>IDCCCXI,V. 






BOSTON: 

F R 1 ]N T i: D BY D A V I U H . E L A, 

NO. 37, COKNHILL. 



V 



TO THE PuBIMC 



Having observed, in the newspapers, that one of the 
"Thirty-one" — that unlucky number, which yields so •' con- 
temptible a product," and which is doomed to such immortal 
infamy — has renounced his standing, and repudiated his 
connection, I was unwilling that the numerical charm should 
be broken. 

Suffice it, therefore, to say,' that I am a volunteer, who, 
touched with a generous sorrow, have come forward, with- 
out the knowledge of the " Thirty-one," stepped into their 
ranks in order to fill up the unlucky number, and perchance 
to receive my death-blow from the hand of Achilles. Let 
not his vengeance mistake its object. I am willing to face 
it on my individual responsibility : for if I must die, what 
an honor to die by such a noble hand. 

' EjiiL ov/ 'oiinya^nn^ 'Exrofjo^ slu!. 



PENITENTIAL TEARS, &c. 



The castigation which Mr. Mann, with equal candor and 
truth, has inflicted upon us, shall not be without its salutary 
effects. It is good for us to be afflicted ; if in the insolence 
of prosperity, we have ventured to question the infallibility 
of one who seems born to dictate, and whose sacred au- 
thority may overbear, when it cannot enlighten, we shall, in 
our affliction, take a wiser course. We are conquered ; we 
are prostrate ; we confess it. For if we measure the degree 
of our humiliation by the motives of our conqueror, we 
know not that we shall ever be able to rise again. Yet the 
wretched privilege is allowed to the most abject beings, to 
complain ; and we have the Honorable Secretary's own 
authority, for believing that he is a man of such philanthropy, 
such meekness, such generosity, his heart so leaps into his 
mouth, at the very suggestion of a plan of benevolence, or 
the prospect of doing good, that his placability will, no 
doubt, pardon us, when he sees us subdued, and weeping — 
prostrate at his feet ; — at least, all of us but one. 

The meekest of men may sometimes be angry. Moses 
once spoke unadvisedly with his lips, and Job complained. 
But such a sight is always a phenomenon which excites our 
2 



attention ; we are as much excited at it, as they would be at 
a thunder shower in Egypt, or an earthquake among the 
hills of New England. 

When the meekness of Horace Mann is disturbed, whose 
softness, and benevolence have been sounded through the 
State by annual Reports, for at least these seven years, 
when such a man condescends to lay aside, for a moment, 
the equanimity of a philosopher and the gentleness of a 
Christian, (belonging however to no sect,) to use such lan- 
guage as the following : 

" Did I believe that invisible spirits were appointed to watch over 
children, and to rescue them from harm, and were the edifice to be 
burned down, where such a teacher goes daily 'to lash and dogmatize,' 
I should think that some beneficent angel had applied the torch, to 
scatter the pupils beyond the reach of his demoralizing government. 
As to that man, until his nature changes, or my nature changes, we 
must continue to dwell on opposite sides of the moral universe:" 

and all this, because an opponent had ventured to question, 
whether the Secretary ivas ready to give his heart as an 
offering to the cause ; surely the spectacle is extraordinary. 

" Can he be angry ? I have seen the cannon 
When it hath blown his ranks into the air ; 
And like the devil, from his very arm 
Puffed his own brother ; And can he be angry ? 
Something of moment then : I will go meet him, 
There's matter in't indeed, if he be angry." 

However, we must not wonder ; the patience of a saint 
may be exhausted. It is not the first time in the history of 
human infirmity, when the artist's irritability has been exactly 
in proportion to the frailty of his edifice. Absurdity and 
innovation need all the sanction of infallibility to protect 
them from ridicule and ruin. 

The first question that naturally arises is — What have we 



done ? What is our offence ? How have we merited this 
terrible castigation ? The truth is, that we have ventured, 
very respectfully, to question the wisdom of certain innova- 
tions, which, in any other age than the present, would have 
been discarded as too absurd even for thought or deliberation. 
In this opinion, we were certainly sincere ; and we vainly 
supposed that in this free land, we had a right to speak out 
our convictions, and to oppose what we considered as 
dangerous error. We knew that respect was due to the 
office of a man, selected by the wisdom of the land to 
watch over the interests of education, and hitherto we had 
seen nothing in his conduct to lead us to question his moral 
character. It should be remembered too, that the innova- 
tions were exceedingly radical : they went to change the 
foundations of our system. All coercive authority was to be 
expelled from our schools ; emulation was to be discarded ; 
text books were undervalued ; solitary study was to give 
place to almost perpetual recitation ; the innocence of human 
nature was assumed ; and all children, good, bad, and 
indifferent, were to be led along by the cords of love ; a 
religion was to be taught definite enough for a child to 
understand it ; and yet neither Jewish, Pagan, Mahometan, 
or Christian ; or if the name of Christianity was admitted, it 
was to consist of no definite truths, (for these had all been 
disputed and were therefore sectarian,) but it was to be a 
general Christianity, so weakened and diluted, that infidels 
might believe, and sensuahsts applaud it. In short, it was to 
be a Christianity that was to command the assent of every 
body. To all this, we must add, that these fine plans seemed 
to have a wide application, which even their author scarcely 
ventured to mention. 

In Mr. Mann's benevolence, education ceases to be a task 
to the pupil ; all the burden is put upon the teacher ; no 



hill of difficulty is to meet the young pilgrim ; he is to be 
surrounded with clouds of incense, and to tread on softness 
and flowers ; the innate love of knowledge is to be his sole 
stimulus, sufficient to arm him against all difficulties, and to 
incite him to all the industry he needs. Now it seemed 
pretty obvious, to a consistent man, that on this system, all 
classical learning must be discarded — the Greek and Latin 
languages could never be attained. For it is too much, 
even for Mr. Mann's scheming mind, to suppose that the 
distinctions of a Latin grammar, or a paradigm of the Greek 
verbs, are to be mastered by a pupil who has been taught to 
make his education his amusement. This conclusion is the 
more natural, as Dr. Rush, the prototype and pattern of the 
Secretary, had said the same thing more than fifty years ago. 
" How few boys," says Dr. Rush, " relish Latin and Greek 
lessons ! The pleasure they sometimes derive in learning 
them, is derived from the tales they read, or from a competi- 
tion which awakens a love of honor, and which might be 
displayed on an hundred more useful subjects ; or it may 
arise from gaining the good will of their masters or parents. 
Where these incentives are wanting, how bitter does the study 
of languages render that innocent period of life, which seems 
exclusively intended for happiness." " I wish I had never 
been born," said a boy, eleven years old, to his mother ; 
" Why my son," said the mother. " Because I am born 
into a world of trouble." " Wiiat trouble," said his mother, 
smiling, " have you known, my son ?" " Trouble enough, 
mama," said he, " two Latin lessons to get every day." 
Now certainly with these views, the learned languages must 
be rejected. There is no royal road to them — no beautiful 
mountain like the modern Hymettus, where the bees murmur 
to the very top. From these extravagant views, we have 
expressed a respectful dissent. And hence, we belong to 
the " unlucky number" — hence we are " pulverised." 



We thought, (perhaps falsely,) that the language we used 
was uncommonly kind and respectful ; and as to our senti- 
ments, the only fault was the presumption of venturing to 
differ from him. We said, explicitly, that his report, " in all 
its connexion with the interests of education, and in all its 
bearings upon the reputation and influence of numerous 
teachers, is one of high importance. This importance is 
greatly enhanced by the high official station, and the elevated 
moral and literary character of its author." (Remarks, p. 5.) 
We explicitly stated, that we differed from him " with great 
reluctance." " We doubt not that the Honorable Secretary 
is fully aware of the great responsibility involved in the 
exercise of the powerful and widely extended influence of 
his office, and that it is his desire faithfully to acquit himself 
in the discharge of that responsibility." (Remarks, p. 39.) 
We said again, that " though differing from Mr. Mann, upon 
this subject, we would by no means be supposed to under- 
value his efforts in the cause of education, or detract aught 
from the benefits his labors have conferred. Our dissent from 
his views arises from an honest conviction that, if adopted, 
they would retard the progress of sound learning." (Remarks, 
pp. 56-7.) We closed our pamphlet with these emphatic 
words : " We have to say, finally, that as we came forward 
reluctantly to the task of publicly expressing our dissent 
from some of the sentiments advanced, and plans of teaching 
proposed, by the Honorable Secretary in his report, we take 
leave of the subject, with the satisfaction which springs from 
a consciousness of having discharged a duty which we owed 
alike to ourselves, to the public, and to him." (Remarks, 
page 144.) 

This humble, and almost abject manner of approaching 
his dignity could not shield us from the anger of an enraged 
philanthropist. 

He has heated his furnace seven times hotter than it was 



10 

wont to be heated ; he has poured out the phials of his indig- 
nation upon us. He charges us with being the foes to 
improvement — (as perhaps personified in himself) — of 
wishing to petrify education, and fix it in its infant state — 
of having disgraced all the Boston teachers and ourselves — 
of rolling "sea fog" over his sunshine — of condemning 
veterans when we are freshmen ; in short, for a man of such 
matchless moderation, he seems to be very angry with us. 
All this would be a wonder, did we not know that his views 
of education he in this dilemma: they must either be infal- 
libly true, or supremely ridiculous. To doubt them is to 
expose them to contempt. Newton was very calm when his 
demonstrations were questioned ; but woe to the luckless 
wight who ventures to question the delicious dreams of a 
theoretic man. Knowing that his conclusions cannot bear 
the test of reason, the highest provocation you can oiTer him 
is to examine them. 

It is a beautiful touch of human nature in the great Cer- 
vantes, when he makes his renowned Don Quixote angry at 
opposition, just in proportion to the magnificence of his specu- 
lations. It was no small provocation to have such sweet dreams 
disturbed. When Sancho at the inn ventured to question 
whether Dorothea was the Princess Micomicona, because he 
saw her nuzzling in every corner, " Good heavens ! how great 
was the indignation of Don Quixote at hearing his squire 
speak thus disrespectfully ! I say it was so great, that, with 
speech stammering, tongue faltering, and living fire darting 
from his eyes, he said, Scoundrel ! designing, unmannerly, 
ignorant, ill-spoken, foul mouthed, impudent, murmuring and 
back-biting villain ! darest thou utter such words in my 
presence, and in the presence of these illustrious ladies, and 
hast thou dared to entertain such rude and insolent thoughts 
in thy confused imagination? Avoid my presence, monster 



11 

of nature — treasury of lies — magazine of deceit — store 
house of rogueries — inventor of mischief — publisher of 
absurdities, and enemy of the respect due to royal person- 
ages — begone, and appear not before me, on pain of my 
indignation. And in saying this he arched his brows, puffed 
his cheeks, stared round about him, and gave a violent 
stamp with his right foot on the floor, all manifest tokens of 
the rage locked up in his breast." Such was the rage of the 
knight who was usually a pattern of urbanity and politeness. 
And if there be any philanthropist on earth who imagines 
that invention is his own prerogative, and that all benevo- 
lence and wisdom have become impersonated in his own 
form ; and if he wants terms in which to vent his indigna- 
tion against any hardy doubter, who ventures to question his 
principle or oppose his influence, let him go to the romance, 
and improve his vocabulary by the fertility of Don Quixote. 

The next question we may ask is, What has been our prov- 
ocation ? Were we obliged by the laws of God or man to 
hold our peace ? 

The public need not to be told that the duties of a practi- 
cal school-master are exceedingly onerous. It is all a long 
dreary march up hill. Let schemers say what they will, the 
task of putting true knowledge into the early mind, is slow, 
toilsome, unostentatious and discouraging. It was long ago 
remarked, " There is no royal road to geometry." Perhaps 
there is no work where such tiresome efforts are attended 
with such apparently small results. Knowledge leaks into 
the mind by drops. We heard an old teacher make use of 
a homely comparison. It is, said he, boosting a clumsy boy 
up into a tree — he is perpetually falling back on you. 

In these unappreciated duties, in which, as Johnson says, 
" every man that has ever undertaken the task, can tell what 
slow advances he has been able to make, and how much 



12 

patience it requires to recal vagrant inattention, to stimulate 
sluggish indifference, and to rectify absurd misapprehension," 
in these duties a man needs all the sympathy of an enlight- 
ened community. He certainly does not wish to see them 
infected with false theories, and taught to indulge in impossi- 
ble expectations. What can be more calculated to move a 
poor school-master's indignation, when he is toiling alone to 
row his frail canoe against wind and tide — few to visit and 
none to pity him — than to hear of an itinerant philosopher, 
going from Dan to Beersheba to teach the people to make 
demands that none can gratify, and to form hopes that must 
be disappointed. The merchant hates the pedler, and the 
physician the quack, and all men ought to hate popular 
delusion. In the meantime, while our task is increased by 
enormous exaggeration, our accustomed implements are taken 
from our hands. We must burn our rods ; we must use no 
emulation ; we must discard our text books ; we must interest 
the dull, the thoughtless and the lazy ; we must make labor 
as light as recreation. We nmst throw away the alphabet, 
and then teach children the power of letters ; we must work 
impossible wonders ; and all this to prove that education is 
an advancing science, and that seven annual reports have not 
been made in vain. Surely there was something here to call 
forth a remonstrance from those who believe these opinions 
to be wrong. What can be more exciting than to find 
stumbling blocks thrown into a path already obstructed, and 
by a man who has never borne the burden and the heat of 
the day ? 

But our object was not to justify ourselves, but to confess 
our guilt ; and to shed penitential tears over our manifold 
offences. We confess that it is just as certain that we have 
done wrong, as it is that the opinions of the Honorable Secre- 
tary are reasonable and correct. Our motives are as black 
as his heart is immaculate. If his reputation is the altar, 



13 

our pride and our profit shall be the victim and the sacrifice. 
We solemnly confess that our conduct will be proved to be 
far from innocence, when his schemes are shown to be far 
from absurdity and extravagance ; and when the world 
acquits him of being a visionary, it shall see us returning 
prodigals, weeping and prostrate at his feet. O, the agony 
that will wring our hearts, when he shall show his judgment 
to be sober, and his plans to be practicable. 

In the meantime, if we may be permitted from the dust in 
which he has prostrated us to murmur a stifled conviction, it 
shall be, that our whole offence is dissent from his assertions. 
We do not agree with him ; and we have expressed our 
dissent in very decorous language. We utterly deny that 
we have garbled our quotations, or misrepresented his lan- 
guage. He has said precisely the things which we have 
represented him as saying ; and in the very spirit which we 
have represented. Notwithstanding the charge of " sup- 
pressing qualifying remarks and fabricating a sentence I never 
could have written, and imputing to me a signification I 
never intended ; " he did say, and insinuate precisely the 
things we have imputed to him. 

They are the natural consequence of his views ; and a 
man who never gets his head beneath the stars to see what 
is going on in this sublunary state, who imagines a perfection 
just suited to his own fancy, must of course despise all that 
is practical. If the Scotch schools, as he has represented 
them, are patterns of activity, and the Prussian schools 
beautiful specimens of the gentle influence of love and moral 
suasion, of course New England teachers are hyberna- 
ting animals ; they are under a sleepy supervision ; his 
hyperboles are no lies, they are sober expressions of his 
opinions. 

What is it to us, or to the public, that he has covered up 
his goading thorns under a profusion of flowers, that he is 
3 



1% 

paying unmeaning compliments, when he is aiming a fatal 
blow under the fifth rib. The soft language only increases 
the insult. When the Pharisees with the Herodians shewed 
the tribute-money, they were exceedingly respectful in their 
preface ; Master, we know that thou art trve, and teachest 
the way of God in truth, neither carest thou for any man; 
for thou regardest not the person of men. But even these 
men would have been too wise to complain, had their com- 
pliments been omitted in the sacred record. 

The first question that presents itself to our notice is. 
Have we misrepresented the Honorable Secretary, in saying 
that he is a visionary projector in his schemes, and an inac- 
curate observer of facts. If he is not, we are certainly wrong, 
and are ready, on conviction, to make the amende honorable. 

We affirm then, in the first place, it is somewhat difficult 
to say precisely on what ground the Secretary does stand. 
He hardly discards corporal punishment, and yet he regards 
it as a relic of barbarism. He reverences the Bible, and 
yet some of its most comprehensive precepts are only suited 
to an early stage of civilization. Solomon was a wise man, 
and yet some of the projectors of this age are a great deal 
wiser. How much inspiration there is in the Old Testament, 
he has not exactly told us, but yet the Gospel evidently con- 
tradicts it, though an Apostle says, What son is he ivhom 
his father chasteneth not? And again, We have had fathers 
of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence. 

On the subject of emulation he is pretty clear ; he wholly 
discards it; but on the elements of reading he is foggy again ; 
for after having explicitly said that " no improvements could 
be hoped for in teaching to read, while the present mode of 
teaching the alphabet continues," it turns out at last that the 
alphabet is to be taught. 

" Mr. Pierce, in the lecture from which the quotation in the * Re- 
marks ' is made, says, 'After the scholars are able to manage with 



15 

ease, simple sentences, such as are found in Gallaudet's and Worces- 
ter's Primers, Bumsted's First Book, or Swan's Primary Reader, let 
tljem be taught the names and sounds, or powers of letters.' Now the 
first sentence in Gallaudet's Primer is, ' Frank had a dog ; his name was 
SpoV In Worcester's it is, ' .^ nice fan.' In Bumsted's ' First Book,' 
the first sentence has twenty different, but very simple words; the 
second has only six. In Swan's, it is, ' / can make a new cage.'' Mr. 
Pierce's direction therefore, is, ' After the scholars are able to manage 
with ease, such simple sentences' as the above, 'let them be taught 
the names and sounds of letters.' What an outrage then, was it to say, 
that Mr. Pierce would postpone the teaching of letters, until after 'two 
thousand,' or ' one thousand,' or ' seven hundred,' whole words had 
been learned, and then, ' if ever,' begin ' to combine letters into 
words.' Must a child learn seven hundred words before he can read, ' A 
nice fan,' or other similar sentences ? Take the common type, in 
which this Reply is printed, and I doubt whether seven hundred 
different words can be found on any three full pages in it. 

"Still more enormous is the statement in relation to the ' Primer,' 
which is said to be my 'standard ;' for, according to the directions 
contained in that, about a fifth part of the letters were to be learned, 
by or before the time that one hundred words were to be ; and in 
regard to spelling, which, of course, must be subsequent to learning 
the letters, it says, 'There is no doubt, that the sooner it is begun, 
intelligently, the better.' Yet the ' Remarks ' say, 'What surprises us 
most, if this be the meaning, is that Mr. Mann should discover from 
such defective instruction, reasons for a total neglect of the alphabet.' 
The italicising of the word total, is not mine; the 'Remarks' them- 
selves give it this emphasis of falsehood. What an exorbitant misrep- 
resentation, on the threshold of the section, of my views and of the 
views of those with whom I agree! " 

Now Mr. Mann cannot suppose that if any instructor, in 
the process of teaching the alphabet, should choose, in order 
to stimulate attention, to employ a few pictures, with a few 
whole words under them, we should have any controversy 
with him. If this is all he means, his plan is perfectly harm- 
less, and we wish him and all others God speed in their 
efforts. 

But he certainly brought forth his plan with much more 
pomp and circumstance ; he evidently regarded it as a 



16 

great innovation. It was a new foundation ; and no hope 
could be entertained of great improvements in teaching until 
it was universally adopted. But whatever may be his reason- 
ableness here, which evidently can only be saved from folly, 
by the extent of the innovation — it is evident that he regards 
children as born with a burning thirst for knowledge ; going 
to school is but taking them to a toy-shop ; they may be led 
along through all the rough and smooth places of education 
with interest and delight. Shakspeare's whining school- 
boy, creeping like a snail, unwilling to school, is a picture 
no longer to be acknowledged. " I deny," says the Secre- 
tary, with that peculiar eloquence which belongs to his views 
of truth, "I deny that any Christian man, or any enlightened 
heathen man, is left without resource, under such circum- 
stances, ' unless he appeals to fear.' He has the resource of 
conscience, which is no more extinguished in the child's soul, 
by the clamorous passions that, for a time, may have silenced 
its voice, than the stars of heaven are annihilated by the 
cloud which for a moment obscures them from our vision. 
He has the resource of social and filial affections. He has 
the love of knowledge and of truth, which never, in all its 
forms, is, or can be, eradicated from a sane mind. If the 
teacher is what he ought to be, he has the resource of a pure 
and lofty example, in his own character ; and he moves be- 
fore the eyes of his pupils as a personification of dignity and 
learning and benevolence. What a damning sentence does 
a teacher pronounce upon himself, when he affirms that he 
has no resources in his own attainments, his own deportment, 
his own skill, his own character ; but only in the cowhide 
and birch, and in the strong arm that wields them ! " Now 
the question is, with these views of education, are we libellers, 
or is he a visionary ? 

Let us begin with punishment. So congenial has it been 
to the sentiments of mankind, that the rod has passed into a 



17 

common metaphor. When Mr. Mann thinks he is combat- 
ing prejudice, he is certainly at war with nature. The 
necessity of resorting to corporal force arises from the sen- 
suality of our nattn-e, and the fact that children cannot com- 
prehend the sublime motives which open before them in an 
immortal existence. Before we eat the fruit, we must plant 
the tree. Before we win the crown, we must run the race. 
Some part of education is spent in getting, not directly 
knowledge, but the vehicles of knowledge ; just as the car- 
penter or mason may .spend some time in putting up the 
staging. The chesnut bur's, after all, are very appropriate 
emblems. When a general takes some advantageous height, 
levels the trees, blows up the rocks, smooths the surface, and 
draws up the cannon, the work for a while seems very use- 
less, and very discouraging ; the common soldier must take 
it on trust. But when the battery is laid, and the walls of 
the enemy begin to fall, then the meanest sentinel sees the 
object to be attained. We must meet these rough places in 
the paths of knowledge ; and the skilful instructer must help 
his pupil over them as well as he can. Indeed difficulties 
are good for us ; our enemies are our friends, and our an- 
tagonist is our helper. Who has not known the pleasure of 
triumphing over a problem, which at first well nigh threw 
him into despair ? 

Every sound and sullen scholar looks back with pleasure 
on these delicious difficulties. These soft and silken reform- 
ers who wish to smooth the passes to knowledge, and make a 
world for the young which God has never made, would only 
spoil the rising generation, supposing they could carry their 
plans into execution. A wise man devoutly thanks God that 
the price of knowledge is labor, and that when we buy the 
truth, we must pay the price. If you wish to enjoy the 
prospect at the mountain's summit, you must climb its rug- 
ged sides. 



18 

• 

What would this new school of philanthropists say to the 
beautiful allegory, — the Choice of Hercules, — first pictured 
by Prodicus, then adorned by the prose of Xenophon, and 
afterwards by the poetry of Lowth. They must change the 
personages in that instructive scene, and give to virtue the 
language of vice. Is not the philosopher describing a mod- 
ern reformer, when he says, " She came to him with the most 
elegant skin ; whiter and more rosy than reality ; with a gait 
more erect than nature ; having her eyes wide open, (that is 
staring at wonders,) and in garments, through which her 
beauty appeared ? " And then she went on to promise 
him almost as many impossibilities as are attempted in the 
Normal School at Lexington. What must these men think of 
Hesiod's paths to education, rgrj^vg to ngmov ; but which was 
found mo?^e easy for having been once so difficult 1 The 
truth is, all antiquity is against them ; and they can only be 
right when they reverse the records of experience, and show 
that the whole world has been mistaken. 

Mr. Mann says, that corporal punishment is a " relic of 
barbarism," and that it came down to us from the dark ages. 
It is very evident that his dark ages are not the middle 
ages, for Horace, who is supposed to know something of the 
Augustan age, speaks of it. Memmi quae plagosum mihi 
parvo orbilium dictare.* Orbilius was his school-master. 
Plagosus Orbilius may be strictly translated, My feruling 
school-master and his lessons were remembered, because his 
government was energetic. Horace, who felt his blows, has 
celebrated his memory in immortal verse. Suetonius, in his 
account of illustrious grammarians, has described him. Fuit 
autem naturae acerbae, non modo in antisophistas quos 
orani sermone laceravit, sed etiam in discipulos. He was 
a whipper, and severe with his scholars — ferula cecidit. 

«Hor. Epist. Lib. II., Ep. 1, Line 70. 



19 

Juvenal alludes to the same punishment. (See Sat. I. 1. 15.) 
Et nos ergo manum ferulae subduximus. We too have 
pulled away our hands when the master was clapping us. 
Augustine, one of the lights of Christianity, speaks thus in 
his confessions. " Discipline is needful to overcome our 
puerile sloth, and this also is a part of thy government 
over thy creatures, O God, for the purpose of restraining our 
sinful impetuosity. From the ferules of masters to the trials 
of martyrs, thy wholesome severities may be traced, which 
tend to recal us to thee from that pernicious voluptuous- 
ness by which we departed from thee." Milner's Church 
History, Vol. II. p. 296 ; Armstrong's edition. 

Melancthon, the great restorer of learning, the amiable 
and pious reformer, has left us his testimony : — Ego habui 
praeceptorem qui fuit excellens grammaticus. llle adegit 
me ad grammaticuni, et ita adegit ut consiructiones 
facerem. Cogebat reddere regulas constructionis per versus 
Mantuani viginti cut triginta. Nihil patiebatur me 
omittere ; quoties errabam, dabat plagas mihi ; et tamen 
ea moderatione quae erut conveniens. Ita me fecit gram- 
maticum. Erat vir optimus ; delexit me ut filium, et ego 
eum ut patrem ; et brevi convenimus, spero in vita 
eterna. See Melchor Adams's Life of the German Theolo- 
gians, p. 328. " I had a master," says this mild reformer and 
best of men, " who was an excellent grammarian. He 
compelled me to the study ; he made me write Greek and 
give the rules in twenty or thirty verses of the Manluan. 
He suffered me to omit nothing, and whenever I made a 
blunder, he whipped me soundly, and yet with proper mod- 
eration. So he made me a grammarian. He was one of 
the best of men ; he loved me hke a son, and I loved him 
like a father, and I hope we shall both meet in heaven." 

The quaint Fuller sanctions the same doctrine. In de- 
sc.ibingthe good school-master, he says : — "He is moderate 



20 

# 

in inflicting deserved correction, though he questions whether 
all the whipping in the world can make their parts, which 
are naturally sluggish, rise one minute before the hour nature 
hath appointed." Holy State, Book II. Chap. 16. 

Dr. Johnson had felt the severities of the pedagogue, and 
gave us on this subject not only his opinions, but his expe- 
rience. 

" Mr. Langton one day asked him how he had acquired 
so accurate a knowledge of the Latin, in which I believe he 
was exceeded by no man of his time. He said, My master 
whipped me very well ; without that. Sir, I should have done 
nothing. He told Mr. Langton that while Hunter was flog- 
ging his boys unmercifully, he used to say, ' And this I do to 
save you from the gallows.' Johnson upon all occasions 
expressed his approbation of enforcing instruction by means 
of the rod. ' I would rather,' said he, ' have the rod to be 
the general terror to all, to make them learn, than to tell a 
child, if you do thus or thus, you shall be more esteemed 
than your brothers or your sisters. The rod produces an 
eflTect which terminates in itself.' " Boswell's Life, Vol. I. 
p. 20. 

Dr. Goldsmith reiterates : " Whatever pains a master may 
take to make the learning of the languages agreeable to his 
pupil, he may depend upon it, it will be at first extremely un- 
pleasant. The rudiments of every language, therefore, must 
be given as a task, not as an amusement. Attempting to 
deceive children into instruction of this kind is only deceiv- 
ing ourselves ; and I know no passion capable of conquering 
a child's natural laziness but fear. Solomon has said it 
before me, nor is there any more certain, though perhaps 
disagreeable truth, than the proverb in a verse too well known 
to be repeated on the present occasion. It is very probable 
that parents are told of some masters who never use the rod, 
and are consequently thought the properest instructers for 



21 

their children ; but though tenderness is a requisite quality 
in an instructer, yet there is too often the truest tenderness in 
well-timed correction." (Goldsmith's Works, Vol. IV. pp. 
220-21.) Sir Walter Scott has some remarks of similar ten- 
dency in the beginning of Waverly ; and Coleridge tells us he 
was soundly and profitably whipped in his youth for being an 
infidel. " Had my preceptor argued with me, it would only 
have gratified my vanity," says he ; " a whipping was the very 
thing that my ignorance needed." We have here, then, the 
names of Socrates, Xenophon, Horace, Suetonius, Juvenal, 
Augustine, Melancthon, Fuller, Johnson, Goldsmith, Scott 
and Coleridge, on the other side of the question. The list 
might be extended almost indefinitely. Let them be thrown 
into one scale, and Horace Mann and his coadjutors mount 
the other ; we are fearless for the result, and the world shall 
never know from our lisping testimony who kicks the beam. 
In youth the passions are strong, the reason is weak, and 
the experience almost nothing. It is impossible for a child 
to penetrate into futurity, and see the sublime motives which 
even the man, after years of experience, very imperfectly 
conceives, and still more imperfectly acts upon. If the sen- 
sual predominates over the intellectual in the sage and the 
philosopher, how much more in those whom the laws of 
nature and of nature's God have reduced to the lowest scale 
of reasoning intelligence. The necessity of overcoming 
sloth by pain, arises partly from the sensuality of our nature, 
partly from the very structure of the youthful mind, 
which must be taught to see future evil in a concentrated 
symbol. We give them a less amount of suffering in order 
to make them avoid a greater ; and we give it to them not 
only in justice, but the highest mercy. Every well construct- 
ed mind, like Melancthon's, when informed by experience, 
looks back on the school-boy hours, and thanks his teacher, 
4 



22 

• 
not only for his lessons, but his bloivs. It is not the small- 
est evil of the philanthropist's moon-shiny speculations, that 
it teaches children to cherish resentment for correction, for 
which they ought to feel the deepest gratitude and love. 

As to the idea that the natural curiosity which all children 
feel is sufficient, when well directed, to lead common minds 
and all minds to the sublimest heights of knowledge, it is a 
dream, which can only enter the mind left to compare the 
universe to a toy-shop. What is this natural instinct for 
knowledge, and to what objects does it lead ? It may teach 
a boy to find a bird's nest ; to shoot flying ; to drive a stage ; 
or it may induce him to give attention to any other of those 
athletic sciences which are the sport rather than the business 
of human creatures. It may help a youth through a novel, 
or teach him to learn a ballad, and especially to learn all 
the licentious parts of the physiology of the human frame. 

In its best state it can only direct some peculiar minds to 
some single congenial department. No doubt Paganini 
learned to fiddle by his instinctive fondness for that kind of 
knowledge. Garrick probably learned acting, and West 
painting, in a similar way. In its best impulses, it can only 
operate on peculiar minds ; and that not to the whole circle 
of knowledge, but in some one peculiar direction. Burns 
was a poet ; and it is likely he learned poetry by a spontane- 
ous industry ; other knowledge, like other mortals, he got by 
painful effort. 

It is well known that some men have become eminent in some 
sciences, which at first were exceedingly disgusting to them. 
Knowledge may be compared to a garden full of delicious 
fruits and flowers, but surrounded with a thorny fence. We 
must break through with painful scratches before we can sit 
under the comfort of its shades, or hear its water-falls break 
on the ear. It is like the representation which the old geog- 



23 

raphers give of the still vexed Bermoothes ; the most 
dreadful tempests roared around its shores — perpetual thun- 
ders rocked its skies, and unclassified monsters tumbled 
in its seas. The voyager could scarcely land there vv^ith- 
out being stranded ; but, once safe ashore, and he was 
met by the breezes of an unfading spring, and regaled with 
the fruits of an everlasting autumn. Now, a theorist may at- 
tempt to alter the elements of nature as well as the elements 
of education. If he tries to peddle out his goods at a 
cheaper rate than the wholesale Author of the universe has 
imported them from the boundless regions of his own 
on)niscience, he will become a bankrupt in the end. His 
cheats will be detected, and his wares sink even to a lower 
price than his own valuation of them. 

Perhaps the place where Mr. Mann's theories are best 
carried out is among the Indians. There we can easily 
imagine, that the instinctive love of such knowledge as they 
teach is adequate to all the purposes of education. They 
never whip their children, (any more than they do at the 
Lexington Normal School,) never stimulate their emulation 
by setting before them the high prizes of life ; never mortify 
their vanity, and never teach them the alphabet ; they are 
taught things not words ; how to entrap the deer ; how to 
cast the tomahawk ; and, we have no doubt, the process of 
education is all smooth and delightful. 

But, pray, is this facility owing to their superior wisdom, 
or a deplorable want of conceptions of the high objects after 
which an immortal and intellectual being should strive ? No 
doubt puerile instincts will carry a boy to some species of 
instruction. But we shall prize it higher, and recommend it 
more, when we find it has ever made a Coke or a Newton. 

" Believe,'^ says Coleridge, '' in order that you may knoiv." 
The incipient stages of education, (except to some few 



24 

• 

remarkable minds, like Paschal's or Barralier's,) never can be 
made delightful. No doubt, in the subsequent stages, the 
fruit comes with the labor, just as the farmer may eat the 
apples while he gathers them, though for some years he must 
plant and prune an unbearing tree. The effect of the 
modern schemes must be to dwarf the intellect ; if it is 
always delightful for a boy to learn, he will of course only 
learn what is delightful. Now there is skill in all things — 
in pitching coppers, in packing cards, and, as the proverb 
says, even in roasting an egg. 

All this, however, is below the consideration of our sublime 
Secretary. He sees no difficulty in making the veriest infant 
appreciate the value of all the learning he is called to acquire. 
You can put the sublimest motives into the meanest mind. 
When a man has got upon his sublimities, you must shoot 
him flying, or there is no bringing him down to a conception 
of earthly difficulties or practical prudence. To visit our 
earth, like the winged messengers who bestride the lazy-pcb- 
cing clouds, and to excite the white, upturned, wondering 
eyes of mortals, that fall back to gaze on him, is some- 
times the beginning and end of his mission. We present to 
the sober experience of every man, woman and child in the 
State, the following labored paragraph ; and we will consent 
to be called fools for ever, if, with whatever eloquence it may 
seem to be written, it is not acknowledged to lack one 
species — the eloquence of truth. 

"'School Discipline,' is a comprehensive phrase, signifying the vast 
range of means and motives by which the bad passions of children 
may be overcome, and by which, also, their character, so far as school 
influences are capable of doing it, may be cultivated and trained into 
symmetry, loveliness, strength, honor, veracity, justice, reverence, and 
immortal blessedness. This subject, then, introduces us at once into 
the presence of a vast assemblage of measures and appliances, from 
the low motive that controls the craven and the brute, — the fear of 



^25 

bodily smart, — up to social, personal, filial, domestic considerations, and 
from these to the hallowed and immortal influences of morality and 
religion. Whoever looks at this momentous theme, at all with the eye 
of a philosopher or a moralist, sees this vast and various assemblage 
of motives and means, arranged, as it were, upon an immense scale, 
one end of which measures the force of impulses that belong to the 
brute, while the other reaches to the aspii'ations of the highest spirit 
that bows before the Eternal Throne. It is a scale, which, like the 
ladder seen in the vision of the patriarch, reaches from earth to heaven. 
The teacher called to preside over children, and to mingle his influ- 
ences in the formation of their character, looks up and down along this 
scale, where all persuasives and dissuasives are orderly arranged ; and 
be selects, as his favorite instruments, such as find their strongest 
affinities in his own nature. If he be a ' lover of God and friend of 
human kind,' then his prayerful desires and longings are, to select his 
motives from the loftiest of the series, that he may thereby inspire his 
pupils with the spirit of those two great commandments on which 
hang all the law and the prophets, — first, the love of God with all the 
heart, and soul, and mind ; and second, the love of our neighbor as 
ourselves, which divine authority has declared to be like unto the first. 
If, however, the teacher be stricken with a madness for worldly distinc- 
tion, and power, and display ; if he is one who can forget the desola- 
tions of war in the splendors of a triumph ; if he can be blind to the 
atrocities of the slave-trade while doting upon the regal wealth which 
it yields; if he can gaze with envy upon elevated political station with- 
out scorning the meanness or moral profligacy by which it may have 
been reached, then he will goad on his pupils by the fiery incentives of 
ambition, and will cherish those rivalries in the school-room, which 
shall afterwards grow into overreachings in the market-place, and 
corruption in the senate-chamber. I remember once hearing a very 
distinguished writer and college teacher in this country say, while 
advocating emulation in school, that it was the only way to give dra- 
matic interest and glory to the history of the race. ' Without emula- 
tion,' exclaimed he, deprecatingly, 'there would be no Caesars, no 
Napoleons; society would dwindle down into tameness,or consist only 
of such men as Fenelon and Dr. Channing.' And if, to give one more 
specification, if the prevailing attributes in the teacher's cliaracter be 
pride, the love of domination, a morbid sensitiveness about his own 
personal importance, which converts the condemnation of a principle 
into a purposed indignity, and applies it to himself, — if that character 
includes, also, a recklessness of all sacrifices, however boundless, bv 



which the lust of ' authoritj' ' can be sated, then, out of this vast scale 
of motives, which measures the distance between the brute and the 
angel, he will select, and bring out, and defend, the lowest of them all, 
— absolute, unexplaining sovereignty, or 'authority,' on his own side; 
absolute, unreasoning subjection on the side of the pupil; — and the 
doctrines advocated and ' worshipped' by him will be, that both the 
sovereignty and the subjection shall be maintained by fear, and the in- 
fliction of physical pain." 

This is sublime ; so sublime as to be above the clouds, and 
up to the moon. All this vast scale of motives is susceptible 
of being put into the mind of a baby. You must not use 
the rod, because there is a vast chain of motives reaching 
from the throne of the Eternal down to the Normal School 
at Lexington. It is like a ladder, and some stand on one 
round and some on another. The teacher, called to preside 
over children, looks up and down along this scale, and per- 
haps becoming a little giddy as he approaches the top, he 
selects the highest motive to influence the lowest mind. At 
any rate, having such a copious store, imported from all 
time and all eternity, it is very strange if he cannot dispense 
with the rod, which lies crushed beneath the ladder, and 
bruised under its feet. The only difficulty is to conceive 
how a little child is to climb up this immense ladder, and 
reach and reap these celestial rewards. It reminds us of 
the Irishman, who, boasting of his country, told the Yankee 
that their bees were as big as oxen. " But what sort of hives 
do you have ? " said the Yankee. " O, just such as yours." 
" But,"' said the curious Yankee, "how do your bees get into 
them?" "Arrah," says Paddy, "that is their look out." The 
motives of New England and the hives of Ireland, may go 
together. 

Let us be understood. We are no advocates for unneces- 
sary severity. Our consciences acquit us of ever having 
struck, intentionally, one needless blow. We are even will- 



27 

ing that every school-master should enter his domain with 
the secret purpose in his own breast, of governing without 
corporal punishment, if he can. It has always been our 
experiment. But we can scarcely conceive of a more miser- 
able situation, than that of a poor pedagogue, put into a 
school of unruly boys, in a district already infected with the 
new theories ; the children already spoiled, by the perfection 
of parental discipline ; the rod denounced as a sprig of the 
dark ages ; and it being proclaimed, by sound of trumpet, 
that its use is a measure of the teacher's want of skill, he is 
set to work. We can hardly conceive of a condition more 
degrading and discouraging ; and, in our hottest vengeance 
against the new philanthropists, the greatest curse we can 
wish them, (although it is almost too bad.) is to he put into 
it. Even Horace Mann might be benefitted by the event. 

The wisdom that discards the rod, is excessively afraid of 
emulation. Reformation is universal ; it cuts up all experi- 
ence by the roots. It makes no distinction, and it equally 
discards that emulation which is for things laudable, and is 
regulated by justice, with that which is excessive, and leads 
to frivolous distinctions and bad results. For ourselves, we 
think, lohen the merit can he exactly measured, some por- 
tion of emulation leads to salutary exertion, and has no bad 
influence on the heart. Take the case of spelling for exam- 
ple, the grade of honor is easily ascertained ; the degree of 
merit is various, from the head of the class, to one remove 
from the bottom. What child was ever injured by it : and 
what spelling has not been improved ? It cannot be rank 
poison, for all New England has survived it. The lieroes of 
the revolution passed through this pernicious process ; and a 
Franklin, a Washington, a Warren, a Mather, and an 
Edwards, are its fruits. It is true, there may be a feverish 
passion, excited by a false application of this principle ; 



28 

• 
just as a truckman may abuse his horse with his whip. But 

has the city of Boston ever made an ordinance that no 

truckman shall carry a whip ? 

We may ask, too, where is this reform to stop ? If emu- 
lation is so poisonous to boys, why not pernicious to men ? 
The school is a little world ; and education should be an 
epitome of what is to be hereafter. Must all the distinctions 
of life be abolished, because men may feel for them a 
dangerous emulation ? Must there be no captains, colonels, 
nor esquires — no titles of honor — nor offices of respect ; for 
those grown children, who are just as susceptible of being 
perverted, by the existence of this passion, as their younger 
images are by its abuse ? Perhaps the very Board of Educa- 
tion itself may go in this moral reformation, and the very 
Secretary's office be abolished. One of our colleges, in the 
onward progress of the day, has abolished all distinction of 
parts on commencement day ; and yet they have done but 
half their work ; for they still continue to give diplomas to 
doctors of divinity ; that is, under-graduates need no emula- 
tion to excite them to study ; but grave preachers do. It is 
just as it should be ; for, as Mrs. Q-uickly says in Shakspeare : 
" It is not good that children should know any wickedness ; 
old folks you know have discretion, as they say, and know 
the world." 

Mr. Mann, if we understand him, would put the rod into 
the school-master's hand, and say with great solemnity, I am 
no ultraist, I have never advocated the abandonment of its 
use. " After all other means have been tried, and tried in 
vain, the chastisement of pupils, found to be otherwise 
incorrigible, is still upheld by law, and sanctioned by public 
opinion." But then, remember, it is a 7'elic of barbarism. 
Its use proves less that your pupils are guilty, than that you 
are a blunderhead. 



29 

" Through the ignorance of the laws of medicine, a 
parent may so corrupt the constitution of his child, as to 
render poison a necessary medicine, and through an igno- 
rance of the laws of the mind, he may do the same thing 
in regard to punishment. When the arts of health and 
education are understood, neither poison nor punishment 
will need to be used, unless in most extraordinary cases." 
" The fear of bodily pain is a degrading motive." " These 
are motives taken from the nethermost part of the nethermost 
end of the scale of influences." Truly, here is an encourag- 
ing advocate. When these things are said, not merely to 
school-masters, but to every man, woman, and child, in the 
community, we shall soon have schools which only the 
inventor of the theory can govern. The implements of 
Solomon, and the wisdom of Solomon, must for ever be 
separated ; and the passage be blotted from revelation, which 
says, Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy 
soul spare for his crying. Proverbs, xix. 18. It is good 
for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. Lam. iii. 27. 
Even Christ has said, My yoke is easy, — but still it is a yoke. 

The worst feature about this miserable philosophy, is its 
prudery and purism; imposing on us a paper perfection, 
utterly inconsistent with life and manners. In contradicting 
God's word, it assumes the existence of a world which God 
never made. All its pupils are made of gingerbread, and so 
sweet, that none but a reformer, paid for his voracity, can 
ever swallow them. It falls in, too, with the weakness of the 
times ; it has the skill of the devil, and tempts us on our 
feeble side. The fault of excessive democracy is a propen- 
sity to be captivated with bold experiments. As the major- 
ity decides, the people must be startled with some glittering 
theory ; and the promise must be as large and as sublime, as 
the performance is mean and contemptible. 

Now we can scarcely conceive of a man worse employed 
5 



30 

• 
than in catering to such a corrupted taste. He is tempting 

the people to the very precipice, to which they are forward 
enough to rush of their own accord. " Hypocrisy," says 
Burke, " of course dehghts in the most subUme speculations ; 
for, never intending to go beyond speculation, it costs nothing 
to have it magnificent." While some fev, good men are 
using all honest arts to undeceive the people, endeavoring to 
rein in their extravagant fancy and recal their abused reason 
to the sober realities of life ; while they are teaching them, 
that if they would secure a blessing they must pay the price 
for it ; to find a roving demagogue, in the dress of a philan- 
thropist, going about to counteract their efforts and to push 
delusion into fatal extravagance — Oh ! it is beyond measure 
disgusting. Such a culprit deserves not the pillory — not the 
gallows ; not the slander which he imputes, nor the flagellation 
which he removes — but what is infinitely more severe — he 
deserves to have his celestial robe taken away, and to be 
shown to the world in his mortal rags. 

For our part, if it should be our lot ever to be on a school 
committee, and a candidate should appear before us, pretend- 
ing to do all that Mr. Mann demands ; that is, always to coax, 
never to whip ; to govern only by these high scale motives ; 
to lead all children to the heights of knowledge, by the 
instinctive love of learning; to discard the alphabet and yet 
teach the power of letters ; never to distrust the word of a 
child, whatever might be his story, and never to allow them 
to mistake in a recitation ; to discard emulation and the rod, 
and always to rule by seraphic love ; and finally, to teach 
history, geometry, botany, philosophy, chemistry, astronomy, 
and metaphysics, in all the district schools ; if such a pre- 
tender should come, we should condemn him on his own 
showing, and discard him at once ; and in this we should 
imitate a shrewd farmer, who flourished in Roxbury some 
seventy years ago. There came along a fellow, who wished 



31 

to let himself, one day. The farmer asked him what he 
could do ? and how much ? " How much stone wall can you 
lay in a day ? " " Oh, sixteen rods." " How much salt 
meadow can you mow in the same time ? " " Two acres 
and an half." " How many cords of wood can you cut and 
chop, in the same time ? " " Somewhere about seven." 
" Alas," said the farmer, wiping his mouth, " I cannot hire 
you ; I never should find work enough for you to do ; you 
had better go back to your native place, for there I suppose 
you are all equals." 

As to the debasing influence which fear has on a child, we 
suspect it is all delusion and extravagance. Nothing is 
debasing which is natural, and fear is one of the legitimate 
motives of human life. God has made dangers ; and made 
man, and made fear ; and our sublime philosophy cannot alter 
his works. Besides, it is contradicted by fact. Where was 
there ever a more high-spirited nation, than Great Britain ; 
all whose statesmen, generals, and admirals, were whipped at 
school ? The character of Britain is not perfect, we are 
aware ; but she ofTends much more by her pride and arro- 
gance, than she does by meanness and servile debasement. 
All her heroes prove that the rod of childhood has not 
degraded them. The same may be said of our own revolu- 
tionary heroes. Rome was a corrupt nation ; but certainly 
one of the most magnanimous of all antiquity. Yet we learn, 
both from Horace and from Juvenal, how her great men 
were educated. In the age of chivalry, a blow was worse 
than death; and yet, all these gallant knights had been 
whipped at school. The new theory must give us a long list 
of better examples, before we can forget the tree which has 
borne, in such rich profusion, such excellent fruit. 

Such is the honorable Secretary as a theorist. Let us 
now consider whether he is a less visionary man, considered 
as a reporter of facts. 



32 

The Secretary must excuse us if our minds are perpetually 
recurring to Don Quixote, when we write of him. Now it 
was a remarkable feature in the knight-errant, that he saw all 
objects in the visible world through the glasses of his own 
theory. Windmills were giants, an inn was a castle, a swine- 
herd a herald, and the humble Dorothea a princess from the 
land of monkeys : it is a fine touch, too, in the genius of 
Cervantes, that, though the knight was the pattern of honor, 
and the very mirror of integrity, yet he would lie in favor of 
chivalry. No man need distrust his word in common life, 
though he told more lies than an electioneering newspaper, 
when he went down into Montesinos's cave. We have no 
doubt that Mr. Mann might have a conscience, and might be 
qualified for a witness in any court of law, provided he would 
lay aside his theories, look on this working-day world with 
some attention, be careful to see what really exists, and then 
report solely what he sees ; and, finally, lay aside those 
delusive figures of speech which he candidly acknowledges 
are his besetting sins. " A redundancy of metaphor is a 
fault of my mind." " Did they know how much I strive 
against it, how many troops of rhetorical figures I drive away 
daily, and bar the door of my imagination against them, they 
would pity, rather than reproach me for this mfirmity." 
(Reply, p. 46.) How many of these delusive figures he drives 
away we do not know, we only know how many he admits ; 
and we will here only remark, that a man of his peculiar 
views, and who is so troubled with those thick-coming fan- 
cies that even he himself calls it an infirmity, is the last man 
we should choose to cross the Atlantic to report to us the 
state of foreign schools. If we have ever reproached him 
for a natural infirmity, we are sorry ; and as for pity, we felt 
it long before his pathetic confession called for its increase. 

Without disputing Mr. Mann's integrity, the judgment of 



33 

his best friends, who know him, will bear us out in saying, 
that he always sees all objects in the light of his own opin- 
ions. The coloring is as sure to come as the object is to 
be presented. Thus, when he describes the condition of the 
schools in Massachusetts, he paints them as being in the most 
deplorable state of depression ; bad instructors, sleepy super- 
vision ; non-attendance ; most of the pupils not able to read ; 
old school-houses, (Augean stables,) and a Herculean labor 
to cleanse them. He piles up reports and testimonials without 
moderation or mercy. He says the school system was almost 
an entire failure — plenty of skulls that could not teach, and 
would not learn. In this night of desolation, I came ; I 
spoke the word of order ; I put the darkness to flight ; I col- 
lected the information ; I made the reports ; I proposed my 
theories, and I established the normal schools. All was 
desolation before me, and all was a blooming Eden wherever 
I had trod. Far be it from us to sponge out the coloring of 
this delightful picture. It must be more pleasant for a good 
man to see the blessings he has scattered, than for a vain 
man to sound a trumpet to his own fame. One thing we 
cannot but remark — how easy it is to collect statistics to 
any point which an agent wishes to prove ; it is but to set a 
few devoted followers to writing, and then to call their effu- 
sions reports ; to cull all we like, and reject all that makes 
against us, and the work is done. 

We happen to know whole towns, whole regions, where 
this mighty reformation is still a profound secret, and where 
they esteem it the very salvation of their schools, that iheir 
health has not been tampered with by the nostrums of Hor- 
ace Mann. When he speaks of his labors, they are abso- 
lutely astonishing. Rasselas thought, when he heard Imlac's 
description of the qualifications for writing poetry, that no 
man could ever be a poet ; and Mr. Mann has about con- 
vinced us, that no man ever performed the labors of Secre- 



34 

• 

tary to the board of education. They would exhaust the 
strength of Samson and the patience of Job. If we believe 
them to have been done, it must be on Tertullian's argu- 
ment, — quia impossibile. 

"During the last seven 3'ears, I have published six large volumes of 
school Abstracts, which contain as niuch reading matter as five of the 
great vohnnes of Sparks's Life of Washington. These Abstracts con- 
tain selections from the school-committees' reports, principallj' manu- 
script, all of which I have carefully read. The reports of committees 
that I have examined for this purpose, I think would make, at least, 
fifteen such volumes as Sparks's Washington. In addition to this, I 
have revised all the tabular part of the Abstracts; and set myself down 
night after night to such mere mechanical work as was never before 
imposed upon any officer of the government. The tables of the Ab- 
stract for one year, I prepared without assistance. A competent judge 
has given it a» his opinion, that what I have to do in preparing one of 
these volumes, is equal to six months' continuous labor, — working 
only ordinary hours. If it has employed me less time than this, it is 
because I have made little difference between day and night. During 
the same time, the Annual Reports which I have written, have amount- 
ed to eight hundred octavo pages. My correspondence has been at 
least three times as much as my Reports, — not a little of it being of a 
very difficult character, such as giving advice upon legal questions, &c. 
I have given advice (always gratuitous,) on at least a hundred legal 
questions ; and thereby, as I trust, have saved many districts from all 
the mischievous consequences of litigation. I am now completing the 
sixth volume of tiie Common School Journal, every number of which, 
— with the exception of those issued during my six months' absence 
abroad, when it was in the hands of Mr. Emerson, — I have prepared. 
I have made five circuits over the Commonwealth, occupying, on an 
average, three months each. I have inspected great numbers of schools 
in Massachusetts, and have visited half the States in the Union, for the 
purpose of seeing their schools and examining into their systems of 
education, and have spent six months on a foreign tour. I trust, that, 
for whatever sins I may be called to render an account, idleness will 
not be among the number." 

Now we v^'ill not make narrow exceptions — we will not 
cross-examine this witness, that testifies in his own favor 



35 

with as much truth perhaps as modesty. We only ask Mr. 
Mann to remember, that figures of speech and perhaps hy- 
perboles are among his infirmities. 

During his six months' tour through Europe, and his six 
weeks' flight through Germany, the same ardent fancy fol- 
lows him. 

His tongue is teeming with language, which, to be true, 
cannot be literal ; figures of speech swarm around him too 
good to be rejected by his costly self-denial. Every thing 
corresponds to his own theory, and every example goes to 
confirm it. He sees schools where they vt'hip girls for amuse- 
ment, and schools where nothing but emulation and no emu- 
lation are practised. In Scotland they have the most intense 
excitement, and in Prussia the most Christian gentleness ; no 
rod — no emulation — and no evils attending the absence of 
them. The deaf are taught to speak, and the dumb to sing ; 
and the darkest night settles over the Austrian empire. Now 
other travellers tell different stories : more sober men see 
things in a different light. The Prussian school system needs 
examining. Austria is not, in point of learning, the prison- 
house of darkness he has represented her. She has been 
rising even since the battle of Wagram ; and in Vienna, 
Schlegel gave his most acute and refined lectures on the 
English Shakspeare. 

That some of the dumb may be taught to speak is proba- 
ble ; but that the scheme is so successful, as our traveller 
represents, is not only unlikely from its own evidence, but is 
actually confuted by better witnesses. The truth is, our 
Secretary loves the marvellous too well not to believe it. He 
forms his opinion ; he looks on the world through it ; every 
thing he sees goes to confirm it ; and his six weeks' inspection 
of Saxony and Prussia only serves to send him back the 
same man he was before. He is the Munchausen of the 
moral world. 



36 

• 

It is astonishing that any man awake should quote Mr. Mc 
Laren's letter as confirmatory of Mr. Mann's views. It is 
one of the politest pieces of contradiction we have ever seen. 
It is exquisite ; it almost equals the art with which Mr. Mann 
praised us, when he was stabbing us under the fifth rib. 
" In saying that I think your likeness is correct, of course I 
understand you to mean, not that all the Scotch schools are 
taught in the able manner you describe ; but those schools 
you went to visit in the large towns, and to which the most 
able teachers are drawn, by the superior advantages attending 
them, from all parts of Scotland, are taught in that able and 
energetic manner. If you had gone to visit the schools 
in country places, where, in many instances, extremely ill- 
qualified persons teach, you would, no doubt, have drawn 
another sketch, equally faithful to the life — but it would 
have been very different. '" And then adds, " He had suc- 
ceeded beyond what could be anticipated." Of course, 
in a friendly letter, no man wishes to give his friend 
the lie. Mr. McLaren writes like a man full of politeness, 
and not devoid of honesty ; and then he very softly tells 
our Secretary, that his report, though very graphic, is not 
true, except in a very few instances. It is really to be wish- 
ed, that we had more such letters. What might we know, 
what new testimonies might we discover, if some friend, 
equally discerning and equally faithful, should write from 
Holland, or Saxony, or Prussia ? 

The two capital errors which we have charged upon the 
Secretary, grow out of each other. The mind of strong 
hypotheses always sees facts in a false light. These errors 
are perfectly consistent with much sprightliness of language, 
much brilliancy of fancy, much forethought and much 
invention. They are even consistent with much perverted 
integrity. Every utterer of falsehoods is not a liar, nor is 
every bearer of false witness against his neighbor a breaker 



37 

of the ninth commandment. We impeach the judgment of 
Mr. Mann of high crimes and misdemeanors. We leave his 
heart to God. We say, that whilst he cherishes his present 
opinions, and aims at the extravagant innovations which his 
weakness is grasping, but which his strength never can exe- 
cute, he is utterly unworthy of trust or confidence. Even 
his best intentions cannot rescue him from the most enormous 
mistakes. 

The last thing to which we shall call a moment's attention, 
is, the points at issue between himself and us. 

He begins his pamphlet by saying that he had no intention 
of casting any reflection ; that our conclusions are wiredrawn 
and superfluous ; that the Boston teachers have been excited 
by their own sensitiveness ; and that he has uniformly treated 
all men with delicacy and respect. But is it possible for a 
man, holding his opinions, to look on teachers devoted to 
other practices, and not mean them in the promiscuous 
censures which he has thrown so repeatedly and so severely 
round the world ? Was his bow drawn at a venture ? and 
was it strange that we should feel a sense of injury at the 
promulgation of plans which we think we know to be im- 
possible ? We have never asserted, we do not suppose, that 
the Secretary means us more than a hundred other teachers, 
who know, by bitter experience, that all valuable education 
is a slow process, and that useful labors in this line are 
seldom attended with splendid results. 

But the truth is, his sanguine temperament, his redundant 
fancy, his brilliant anticipations, his metaphorical language, 
whether rejected or received, his acknowledged infirmity, is 
calculated to pour contempt on all rational measures and 
men, whether he is conscious of it or not. Even the tears of 
his mercy are bitter sarcasms, and the balm of restoration 
which he sheds into the wound he has made, is infused by 
the very rod which he denies to us all. 
6 



38 

We confess that we did more than hint, with more truth 
perhaps than courtesy, that there was a reciprocation of 
quoting and praising between certain modern philanthro- 
pists. It was uncivil, we allow ; and we are much more con- 
vinced of our want of politeness in this matter, than our 
want of honesty. But how does the Secretary escape from 
our ungentlemanlike hint. Why, he says Dr. Howe is too 
good a man to hear such things suggested ; and then he 
runs off upon our reasoning, which, after all, turns out to be 
our language. 

"Mr. Mann has said, 'men are generally very willing to modify or 
change their opinions or views, while they exist in thought merely, but 
when once formally expressed, the language chosen often becomes the 
mould of the opinion. The opinion fills the mould, but cannot break it 
and assume a new form.' " 

To this, in order to make an application of my doctrine, I added, 
"Thus errors of thought and of life, originate in impotence of language." 
"O, blindness to the future," not always " kindly given ;" little did I 
think that I was preparing a net, in which not only myself, but my 
friend Dr. Howe, was to be ensnared. Yet see how the doctrine, that 
ignorant nations and ignorant men suffer from a scanty or an unintelli- 
gible vocabulary, is applied to us. See what subsequent errors in our 
lives, are traceable to our " impotence of language." Hear the "Re- 
marks." 

" May it not be in accordance with such a principle, that Dr. Howe, 
before the American Institute, in 1841, defended the Normal Schools 
in Massachusetts, with more than gladiatorial ardor ; he having before 
spoken of the school at Lexington in this manner: it is 'the best school 
I ever saw in this or any other country.' And does Mr. Mann wish to 
be made an exception to his own rule ; when, in his seventh annual 
report, on his return from Europe, he says : 'I have seen no Institution 
for the Blind, equal to that under the care of Dr. Howe, at South 
Boston;' which Mr. Maun had before pronounced 'the first of its kind' 
'throughout the civilized world.' The Hon. Secretary cannot com- 
plain, if those of whom he expressed such unfavorable opinions before 
he went ' to some new quarter of the horizon ' for ' a brighter beam of 
light,' avail themselves in self-defence of his own rules to preserve their 
influence." 



39 

That is, Dr. Howe, in his letter before referred to, of March 9, 1840, 
having spoken in praise of the Lexington Normal School, and having 
shaped his opinion in that form of words, had no language, in which he 
could express a different opinion afterwards ; and therefore, unless he 
enlarges his vocabulary, will be constrained to repeat the same thing 
for ever ; and I, through poverty or unintelligibleness of speech, having 
expressed an opinion in favor of the Blind Institution, in February, 
1841, and having no other phraseology, on my return from Europe, 
was led to express an opinion cast in the old " mould," and so to com- 
mend it again. See pp. 18-19 for this logic of Thirty-one Boston 
School-masters ! No wonder it took so many men to draw such an 
inference. 

The beautiful pun with which this paragraph closes, must 
not bhnd us to the sophistry which has thus shifted the 
question. The greatest mould in language that ingenuity 
ever made, is when she is incited by vanity and interest. If 
Mr. Mann cannot understand our object, we will not force 
his attention to a mortifying truth. Whatever may have 
been the motive, it is still a fact, that two great men have 
mutually quoted and praised each other. Nor is this a soli- 
tary case, nor is the admiration confined to the dual number. 
The most exquisite praise is to be laudatus a viro laudato, 
and here we have it. Unless some better proof is offered, it 
will still be suspected that somewhere nearer than old Rome, 
the following farce has been acted with infinite applause, 
as the play bills say. 

Frater erat Rom<s consuUi rhetor ; ut alter 
Alterius sermone meros audiret honores : 
Gracchus ut hie iUiforet, huic ut Mucins ille. 
Q^ui minus argutos vexat furor iste poetas ? 
Camiina compono, hie elegos miralile visu. 

Hor. Epist. Lib. II., Ep. 2d. 

Passing by many other things of various moment, we come 
to the controversy between Mr. Mann and us, respecting the 
use of the alphabet in teaching children to read. We were 



^0 

not aware that we were so very ridiculous in our views on 
this subject. He informs us that " the subject is ground 
down and pulverized into impalpability, beyond microscopic 
vision. Had it been the unaided production of a single 
mind, the subtlety and evanescence of its refinements might 
have been less ; now I know not how otherwise to describe 
it, than as the doctrine of metaphysics applied to the almost 
endless anomalies of the alphabet. An attempt to individu- 
alize the atomical parts of this section, and to give an answer 
to each, would be like attempting to beat back a square 
league of sea-fog, by hitting each particle with the sharpened 
end of a rod. I shall content myself, therefore, with endeav- 
oring to find some nuclei rarified into less metaphysical 
tenuity than the general mass, and striking at them." 

We are sorry that we are not better understood ; without 
availing ourselves of the obvious maxim that intelligibility is 
always a ratio between the reader's powers of conception and 
the writer's perspicuity, we shall endeavor to be a little more 
plain and shed some light on this foggy subject. 

Mr. Mann had, in his seventh annual report, and in divers 
lectures and written articles, brought forward with great 
pomp, what he called the new method of teaching children 
to read. He had said, with his usual exaggeration, it generally 
took a year or six months to teach children the alphabet ; 
and that this year or six months, was as good as lost ; he 
had said emphatically that he " despaired of any effective 
improvement in teaching young children to read, until the 
teachers of our primary schools should qualify themselves to 
teach in this manner." He gave it a new name — the lautir 
or phonic method ; and declared that it was universally 
adopted in Prussia. He said, moreover, that " the simple 
sounds of the letters, if analyzed, amount to hundreds — that 
teaching the letters was a real impediment ; and were it not 
for keeping up his former habits of speaking at home, and in 



41 

the play-ground, the teacher, during the six months or year 
in which lie confines him to the twenty-six sounds of the 
alphabet, would pretty nearly deprive him of the faculty of 
speech." He says, moreover, that " in regard to the vowels 
when found in words, they receive only occasionally the 
sounds which the child is taught to give them as letters ; 
and in regard to consonants, that they never in any case 
receive the sound which the child is taught to affix to them." 
" I believe," continues he, " it is within bounds to say that 
we do not sound the letters in reading once in a hundred 
times, as we are taught to sound them when learning the al- 
phabet." Such absurdities, according to him, demanded an 
immediate reform ; and though all nations, in all ages, with 
an undeviating experience, had adopted an alphabet, which 
expressed nothing, and was only an impediment, (for even 
the Chinese, after all, have their vocal letters,) yet our age 
was summoned to upset universal experience, and open a 
new and more flowery avenue to the temple of knowledge. 

These positions we ventured to question, and we gave our 
reasons. Our arguments may have been a square league of 
sea-fog, (cubic measure ;) but our conclusions are the experi- 
ence of ages. We ventured to say, that it seemed to us that 
Mr. Mann had confounded the name-sounds of letters with 
their powers. The only modification we shall make in our 
remarks, is, that, in giving the names to letters, the inventors 
of language included the predominant and most usual 
power in the name as well as they could. There is the 
same compression of the lips in sounding the name of B, as 
there is when we use the letter b, in a word. When we 
sound the letter L, we touch the tongue to the roof of the 
mouth, as we do when we express its power in the word tell. 
The sounds of the consonants are exceedingly fugitive and 
evanescent, and we must catch them in the elementary signal 
as well as we can. This gives the child some idea of what 



42 

the power is ; he must go on and modify it, in those long 
columns of antiquated nonsense, which the Secretary quotes 
only to condemn. And let us tell him, (if it is not presump- 
tuous for such castigated pupils as we are, to turn instructors 
to a master so confident in his opinions,) if language, as he 
says, (though it is one of Mr. Mann's figures of speech,) con- 
sists of hundreds of elementary sounds, and if he could invent 
hundreds of symbols to express them, and should he endeav- 
or to nail down each simple sound to each written symbol, 
he would find it impossible. New deviations would rise up. 
His five hundred letters of an alphabet would be just as un- 
certain and ambiguous as they are now. It seems to us, the 
old method is remarkably philosophic, and such as we shall 
have to invent over again, when Mr. Mann's improvements 
have cast it into oblivion. First, we have an alphabet which 
involves in the name the prevailing power of the letter, (for 
it is not true that we do not sound the name-power once in 
a hundred times when we read.) Then we teach the varying 
power in those columns which our reformer ridicules. Ba, 
be, bi, bo, bu, by, &c. Then in longer words, until, partly 
by imitation and partly by the light which imperfect symbols 
can give, the children thus learn to read. So we all learned ; 
and so the world will continue to be taught, when the theo- 
ries of the day have had their wonder and are gone to the 
dust. 

The fact must be conceded, that if the sounds of letters 
are half so numerous as Mr. Mann supposes, it is a very 
tenuous line that distinguishes them ; they melt into each 
other. This is clear from the different numbers that spec- 
ulatists have given them. Dr. Rush says, 35; Mr. Bar- 
ber, 43 ; Mr. Mann, hundreds. Certainly, when such men 
disagree, some of the sounds must be marvellously alike. 
Why not then continue to include such slight differences in a 
single letter, teaching the generic and prevailing sound in the 



43 

symbol and the shades of difference in the practice. This is 
the method which experience will force upon us at last. The 
use of a letter is like the use of gold or silver in money ; it 
has a value in use and a value in currency ; and the value in 
use lays the foundation for the value in currency. And so a 
letter becomes a useful symbol, because its name has always 
some bearing on its power. 

It is impossible to reduce education to a metaphysical 
method. We must sometimes anticipate, and talk to children 
what they do not know, if we expect them to advance. The 
teaching the alphabet, were it all that Mr. Mann calls it, 
would not be a whit more absurd, than the manner in which 
we are obliged to proceed in teaching a child to talk. We 
speak to it, without giving it the means of understanding 
language. We rattle over verbs, nouns, pronouns, preposi- 
tions, conjunctions, interjections, into the ear of the veriest 
baby; we assume what we know is impossible — that the 
little pupil understands what we give it no means of knowing. 
The whole science of education among nurses and mothers 
needs reforming, just as much as the absurdity of the alphabet 
does among primers and school-mistresses. This is our 
solemn opinion ; and we humbly recommend to the Secretary 
that the next gimcrack he gets into his head, should be, to 
sound an alarm on this important subject. Let him show 
the absurdity of talking to babies a language which they 
cannot understand ; that it is an actual impediment to put 
into their hands, Mother Goose's Melodies ; that high 
diddle diddle, the caVs in the fiddle, is preposterous to a 
mind that knows not what a cat or a fiddle is ; and that a 
philosophic education can never perfect men, until it begins 
with the very cradle. 

We thought that Mr. Mann confounded the name-sound 
of a letter with its power. We think so still. We said 
that he exaggerated the number of simple sounds. We say 



44 

so still. We believe that he misrepresented Mr. Worcester. 
We are inveterate in that opinion. Our article is before the 
people ; and if we have misrepresented him more than he 
has us, or have heaped on him half the contempt, our hu- 
miliation shall be complete. 

But after all, this wonderful system, so lauded in the report, 
seems to dwindle amazingly when we come to the reply. It 
would seem as though the author shrunk a little from the 
consequences of his own extravagance ; and the alphabet, 
which was such an impediment, becomes a help-meet after all. 
He does not discard the use ; he only helps it forward by a few 
pictures. Let the reader peruse, and compare the following : 

" The idea that the 'new system,' as advocated by Mr. Pierce, my- 
self and others, postpones the learning of the alphabet, and of course 
spelling, until after seven hundred words are learned, is kept before the 
reader's mind, throughout the section. (See pp. 60, 63, 92, 102.) Now 
the facts that invalidate this representation, stand conspicuously out, 
in the very productions from which it professes to be derived. In the 
'Primer' referred to, there are only about one hundred words, before 
the first story or reading lesson ; and the instructions to teachers con- 
tained in the author's prelace, are, 'Before nil the words are learned 
that belong to the first story, the child may be taught several letters, 
such as s, t, V, b, d,' &c. ' Some children will soon inquire out all the 
letters, and as soon as they are known, it is well to let them spell the 
words,' &c. ' There is no doubt that the sooner spelling is begun, in- 
telligently, the better,' &c. Yet with these directions before them, the 
Thirty-one allege, that according to our plan, 'the alphabet, as such, is 
kept entirely concealed;' and also, that the child, 'after learning either 
seven hundred, a thousand, or two thousand words,' is then, '?/ ever,' 
to learn how to spell. 

"Mr. Pierce, in the lecture from which the quotation in the ' Re- 
marks ' is made, says, 'After the scholars are able to manage with 
ease, simple sentences, such as are found in Gallaudet's and Worces- 
ter's Primers, Bumsted's First Book, or Swan's Primary Reader, let 
them be taught the names and sounds, or powers of letters.' Now the 
first sentence in Gallaudet's Primer is, ^ Frank had a dog ; his name was 
Spof In Worcester's it is, '■ A nice fan.'' In Bumsted's 'First Book,' 
the first sentence has twenty different, but very simple words ; the 



45 

second has only six. In Swan's, it is, */ can make aneto cag"e.' Mr. 
Pierce's direction therefore, is, 'After the scholars are able to manage 
with ease, such simple sentences' as the above, 'let them be taught 
the names and sounds of letters.' What an outrage then, was it to say, 
that Mr. Pierce would postpone the teaching of letters, until after 'two 
thousand,' or ' one thousand,' or ' seven hundred,' whole words had 
been learned, and then, ' if ever,' begin ' to combine letters into 
words.' Must a child learn seven hundred words before he can read, ' A 
nice fan,' or other similar sentences? Take the common type, in 
which this Reply is printed, and I doubt whether seven hundred 
different words can be found on any three full pages in it. 

"Still more enormous is the statement in relation to the ' Primer,' 
which is said to be my 'standard ;' for, according to the directions 
contained in that, about a fifth part of the letters were to be learned, 
by or before the time that one hundred words were to be; and in 
regard to spelling, which, of course, must be subsequent to learning 
the letters, it sajs, 'There is no doubt, that the sooner it is begun, 
intelligently, the better.' Yet the 'Remarks' say, 'What surprises us 
most, if this be the meaning, is that Mr. Mann should discover from 
such defective instruction, reasons for a total neglect of the alphabet.' 
The italicising of the word total, \s not mine; the 'Remarks' them- 
selves give it this emphasis of falsehood. What an exorbitant misrep- 
resentation, on the threshold of the section, of my views and of the 
views of those with whom I agree ! " 

Now it seems to us, that our antagonist is reduced to this 
dilemma ; he has invented something, or he has not. He has 
a great improvement to introduce, or only a harmless modifi- 
cation. If all he means to say, is — that before you teach a 
child the alphabet, you may hang up a few pictures with a 
few words, and you may use these for a time as auxiliary to 
learning the letters ; he has no dispute with us ; all this is 
very harmless and very safe. But then, what becomes of his 
pompous representations in his reports ; of his despairing to 
see any improvement in the primary schools until the new 
method is adopted ; of his anxious inquiry in Prussia ; of 
his solemn eloquence against past folly, and of his earnest 
advocacy, (to use one of his own words,) for a new improve- 
7 



46 

ment. If a man claims the credit of being a reformer, he 
must hazard the martyrdom to which his heroism may lead 
him. It is a mean business to seek the glory, without 
hazarding the disgrace. 

One thing is certain, that all persons who have tampered 
with the alphabet, have found their schemes pass to oblivion. 
Arbitrary monarchs have labored in vain to change the usus 
loquendi. In such cases, the burden of proof lies heavily on 
the innovator ; and he generally is a man of narrow ambition 
and petty wisdom. The very Wilkins, whom Mr. Mann 
quotes, was the bishop, who, after having excogitated a new 
alphabet, projected a flight to the moon. Dr. Franklin, (a 
wise man will have his follies,) devised a new mode of spell- 
ing. He thought that wife should be spelt, yf. Many such 
plans, the schemes of a day, have passed away, like the 
visions of the night. It requires no very great reach of 
prophecy to foretell, that the alphabet will still continue to be 
taught when our schools shall be advanced beyond the utmost 
aspirations of a reformer's millenium. 

There runs through all the Secretary's speculations, the 
same feature of super-refined and super-sublime impractica- 
bleness. His suns always glitter too much to give us any 
guiding light. Thus he is pleased to see the teacher so 
perfect in his lesson as to discard the text-book ; a practice 
rather calculated to astonish the spectator, than to benefit the 
pupil. We once saw a remarkable exemplification of the 
truth of this remark. A tutor in one of our colleges took a 
class through the whole of Horace, without ever looking into 
the book. His eyes were defective, and he chose to trust 
his memory, and he did the thing remarkably well ; and 
every body admired his proficiency. And yet he had better 
have had his book before him ; for we repeatedly caught him 
tripping. To-day he wonderfully detected an idle scholar ; 
to-morrow, he was deceived. If we remember right, Dr. 



47 

Vicessimus Knox, an old teacher, says just the reverse to 
Horace Mann, on this subject. No matter how well versed 
the teacher is in his lesson, let him always have his book 
before him. It is certainly the safest, if not the most 
splendid course. 

To prevent mistakes, we may give a short view of the 
points at issue between the Secretary and ourselves. He 
thinks that man is endowed with such a thirst for knowledge, 
and it so early develops itself, that by this natural curiosity, 
he may be led voluntarily and delightfully to universal 
erudition. We believe no such thing ; however pleasant 
the acquisition of knowledge may be in certain stages of 
advancement, it must be laborious at first. He seems to 
think the pupil is always sucking in direct knowledge. We 
believe he must spend much time in procuring the counters 
and vehicles of knowledge. He thinks that corporal punish- 
ment is seldom or never to be used ; and is always an index 
of the teacher's defective skill ; we think it is a divine 
INSTITUTION ; and is always to be applied when authority is 
resisted, and other means of enforcing it fail. He thinks it 
is a relic of barbarism ; we believe in the eternal law of 
God. He thinks that Solomon spoke imperfect wisdom to a 
barbarous age ; we believe that all Scripture was given by 
inspiration of God. He thinks there is a great difTerence 
between the law and the Gospel, in this respect ; we see no 
such distinction. Our Savior made a whip of cords, and 
drove the buyers and sellers out of the temple. He totally 
discards emulation ; we beheve it must exist, and the safest 
way is to acknowledge and regulate it. He dislikes text 
books ; we believe it is the safest way for a teacher to have 
them. He thinks that the alphabet should not be taught 
first, and that by discarding it, common schools may be led 
on to botany, chemistry, &c. ; we think a fewer number of 
studies, (especially in schools kept only for three months in 



48 

• 
the year,) would be a safer course. He thinks there are 

hundreds of elementary sounds to letters ; we believe that it 
is one of his own figures of speech. He thinks that scholars 
should be kept wakeful, by almost perpetual recitation ; we 
believe that some studies are best learned by mixing the 
hours of recitation with solitary diligence. He thinks he saw 
most of his plans carried into the most successful operation 
in the Prussian schools ; we believe, if he did, he saw these 
things through his own eyes. In short, he believes, under 
his supervision, that miracles are to be wrought in edu- 
cation ; and we believe that the age of miracles is past. 
We submit it to the world, who is right ; but at any rate our 
fall cannot be a very disgraceful one ; for we shall fall, if 
our opponent conquers, with Melancthon, Luther, Locke, 
Johnson, and Goldsmith, with the pages of inspiration and 
the experience of every age, except our own. 

We certainly believe that the science of education is 
susceptible of improvement. We allow that there have 
been great defects in the New England schools, and many 
deficient teachers. We rejoice in every wise effort made to 
elevate them. Perhaps, polemic bitterness might impel us to 
say, that we have never derived any benefit from the writing 
or doings of the Secretary of the Board of Education. fVe 
do not say it. We believe that he has done good ; he has 
collected some information ; he has gone through much 
labor, and he has sometimes in sprightly language and with 
abundant metaphor, called the public attention to the subject. 
Let him have his reward. No asperity of language ; no 
bitterness of contempt ; no attempted ridicule, shall ever 
force us to an act of injustice or lead us to wish to deprive 
him of any praise or profit, which justice or gratitude may 
assign him. The workman is worthy of his hire. But it is 
our deliberate opinion that the good he has done, bears no 
proportion to the harm that is to follow, and must follow, if 



49 

he retain his present opinions. He is not the man for detail ; 
for carrying out a productive plan. He sees every object in 
a blazing, but indefinite light. His moral torch may be 
compared to a tar-barrel ; an excellent thing to hoist on a 
pole and to give an alarm at midnight. But who wishes, and 
who can read the mandates of wisdom and the records of 
experience, by its red and flaring light. His days are 
numbered. He will as certainly leave the Secretaryship, as 
the people will recover their wisdom. The cupidity of the 
public has not borne the expense of his office very patiently, 
and certainly popular frugality has no superfluous moneys to 
throw away. 

We write these things in no malice. We have blotted our 
paper with full as many tears as our compassionate enemy 
has shed over our aberrations. Perhaps Mr. Mann is less in 
fault than we suppose. His position is an unfortunate one. 
Think of a man hired and paid for a certain amount of in- 
vention. Nothing to do but to devise some new schemes, 
and the plan to be totally separated from the execution ! 
Every cent of his salary seems to be paid for splendid inven- 
tions. We have very little respect for any plan in which the 
proposer has no responsibility in the execution. Every man 
needs that regulator to keep him from extravagance, "Who 
would be placed in such a situation ; " said Bonaparte to the 
Abbe Seyes, when he brought forward his scheme for a grand 
elector, " who would fatten like a pig on a splendid salary, 
when he has no share in the Government?" We beg leave 
to say, if Mr. Mann would step down from his eminence and 
take a small share of our toils and discouragements, he might 
view education in a different light. He might find that we 
live in a very dark and sensual world, where no scheme of 
perfection is likely to be executed. He might find that the 
school-master's passage is in a rugged road, where toils, and 
difficulties, and sorrows, and dangers beset him on every 



50 

side ; he might find that there are sluggish pupils that he 
must carry along as he can ; that he must be willing to work 
much to accomplish little ; here a little and there a little ; 
line upon line, and precept upon precept. He might learn 
to pour the vials of his scorn upon other heads, than those 
who are already sinking under some of the heaviest burdens 
that the severity of Heaven ever imposed on the weakness 
of man. 

The Secretary has not always held his office with universal 
acceptance. Murmuring sounds are heard on every side ; 
and some ask the terrible question, What good is he doing? 
The unlucky Thirty-One by no means stand alone. What- 
ever contempt our haughty foe may have for our influence or 
opinion ; with whatever scorn or indignation he may look 
down from his specular mount on our grovelling views or 
feeble opposition ; we can tell him there are numbers who 
think with us. The party is increasing ; and the time may 
come when the head of his reputation may lie as low in dust 
as he supposes he has prostrated us. The lofty looks of 
Man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of Man shall 
be bowed down, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that 
day. For the day of the Lord of Hosts shall be upon 
every one that is proud and lofty, and upon every one that 
is lifted up, and he shall be brought low ; and upon all the 
cedars of Lebanon that are high and lifted up, and upon 
all the oaks of Bashan ; and upon all the high mountains, 
and upon all the hills that are lifted up ; and upon every 
high tower and upon every fenced city ; and upon all the 
ships of Tarshish and upon all the pleasant pictures ; and 
the loftiness of Man shall be bowed down, and the haughti- 
ness of men shall be made low ; and the Lord alone shall 
be exalted in that day ; and the idols he shall utterly 
abolish ; or, if the authority of the New Testament is more 



51 

divine, and less objected to, here it is : — There was a cer- 
tain man called Simon, which, beforetime, in the same city, 
used sorcery, and bewitched the people of Samaria, giving 
out that himself ivas some great one, to whom they all gave 
heed from the least to the greatest, saying, This man is the 
great power of God. And to him they had regard, because 
of a long time he had bewitched them with his sorceries. 
But when they believed Philip preaching — . We have 
quoted enough. 

There was an able report made in the Legislature, written 
by Hon. Allen W. Dodge, in which the claims of the board 
were powerfully contested, and some strong arguments used 
to prove it was positively pernicious. His view, if we recol- 
lect aright, was, that the character of New England had 
always been to lean on no central power ; the diffusion of 
her intelligence was the foundation of her strength. When 
Great Britain took away the charter of Massachusetts in the 
commencement of the Revolution, the reason why she did 
not fall into anarchy was, the httle republics, called towns, 
were every where difiused ; an organization existed, strongly 
fixed and widely spread, which saved us from the horrors our 
enemies designed for us ; that on these towns, and on their 
officers, rested and must rest mainly the great responsibility 
in improving education ; they were near ; a central power 
would be remote ; and however we might select an agent to 
design and invent for us, the toil and care, the detail and 
conflict, must be with the school committee and instructers ; 
that even if not so, the very habit of looking to some con- 
centrated point would be pernicious; it would relax our 
vigilance and impair our strength, just as a limb, swathed in 
bandages and suspended in a sling, becomes impaired in its 
vigor by remitting its activity. We are sensible we give a 
very imperfect representation of this excellent report ; it 
made a great impression on our minds at the time, and we 



52 

would earnestly recal it to the attention of the legislator at 
the present session. They may not agree to all its senti- 
ments ; but before they vote a single cent to the furtherance 
of modern plans, we ask them well to consider what these 
plans are. If they believe that children are to be educated 
only from spontaneous industry, that is, to study just as much 
as they please ; that the delights of knowledge will carry 
them along all the way through under a master who knows 
his business ; that the lautir and j)honic method is to take 
the place of the old-fashioned alphabet ; that a new set of 
teachers, formed under the fostering care of the Secretary, 
are to be imported from newly-modelled schools ; in short, if 
they approve of all the radical innovations of a mind that has 
ten thousand times as much genius as judgment, and in fact 
has no redundancy of either, — vvhy, then, let them vote a 
liberal supply to these purposes — as expensive as they are 
false. But if Massachusetts is true to herself; if she believes 
that her homely schools are to be improved in a sober man- 
ner ; that fine theories would only impair them ; and that 
those who devise can best apply their own plans ; if they 
wish for no central power, but a diffused responsibility and a 
diffused benefit, — then let her venerable senators awake to 
their duty, and not tax the people, to prolong evils, which 
they had better be trebly taxed to prevent. Let them wake 
to their duty before their laws are abused and their schools 
reformed into ruin. 

It is somewhat alarming, too, that no one but the Secre- 
tary himself knows how far his invention reaches. He has a 
fertile mind, not the least checked by experience ; his moral 
courage is immense, and he is not the least startled by his 
own conclusions. He has already uttered some assumptions, 
which seem to us to lead to other consequences ; and an 
alarmed citizen might ask, not only what he has done, but 
tvhere he is to stop. If boys can be governed by gentle love 



53 

— why not men ? If this vast scale of motives, reaching 
from the Eternal throne down to earth, (but never going 
below it,) exists for schools, why not for the country? — 
Who knows, when education is a little more perfected, 
and our virtuous citizens are trained to it, but we may banish 
our jails and our sheriffs, as well as our rods and our emula- 
tion ? We know not that Mr. Mann is a non-resistant ; but 
he has just that musing benevolence, which, for ever grasp- 
ing and for ever smiling, marches on, without one ray from 
reason to enlighten it, to conclusions which have nothing to 
justify them but their terrible consistency with'a first postu- 
late. We have no doubt that the pigeon-holes of his desk 
are filled with speculations yet lost to the world ; and that 
his midnight hours have not always been spent in making 
reports. It is a natural impression, that so restless a mind 
will not be stationary. We mean not to impute any thing 
slanderous to him. We can only judge of the operation of 
other minds by the natural order in our own. We must say 
that we should be non-resistants, no-government men, could 
we become converts to the Secretary's opinions. 

Boston has not always been the centre of such specula- 
tions. Perhaps there are few men to whom a whole genera- 
tion were under greater obligations than Caleb Bingham. 
He flourished just after the Revolutionary war, and he caught 
the spirit of the times. He had high aspirations of what 
America was to be ; and he supposed education to be the 
very pillar and basis of practical liberty. He not only taught, 
but he wrote and compiled ; and some of us remember the 
tone of patriotism, the ardor of freedom, we caught from the 
pieces in the American Preceptor, and the Columbian Or- 
ator. We shall always look back to the impressions made 
by these books, with that mystical reverence which can 
be engendered only in childhood. There we learned how 
Chatham defended America ; how, from " the tapestry that 
8 



54 

« 

adorns these walls," he called upon the immortal ancestor 
of Lord Suffolk to frown with indignation on the cruelty 
which could employ the merciless cannibals, the savage hell- 
hounds of America, in torturing, murdering, and eating, 
our captivated citizens. We seemed to hear the venerable 
orator ; and our youthful blood boiled with indignation at 
the tyranny thus painted to our imagination in flashes of 
light. Ah ! those were golden days. 

" All ! happy hills ; ah, pleasing shade ; 

Ah, hills beloved in vain — 
Where once my careless childhood strayed, 

A stranger yet to pain. 
I feel the gales that from ye blow, 
A momentary bliss bestow, 

As, waving fresh with gladsome wing, 
My weary soul they seem to soothe, 
And, redolent of joy and youth, 

To breathe a second Spring.'" 

Yet Mr. Bingham, thus ardent in his imagination, a pro- 
jector and a democrat, had none of the modern false theo- 
ries. In one of his dialogues, written or selected, he ridi- 
cules this flowery-lawn system of education. 

" Scene. A Public House in the ioion of . 



Enter School-Master, with a pack on his back. 

School-Master. How fare you, Landlord ? What have you got that is 
good to drink .-* 

Landlord. I have Gin, West India, genuine New England Whisky, 
and Cider Brandy. 

School-Master. Make us a stiff mug of sling. Put in a gill and a half 
of pure New England, and sweeten it well with 'lasses. 

Landlord. It shall be done, sir, to your liking. 

School-Master. Do you know of any vacancy in a school in your part 
of the country, Landlord .'* 

Landlord. There is a vacancy in our district ; and I expect the Parson 
and our three School-committee men will be at my house directly, to con- 
sult on matters relative to the school. 



55 

School -Master. Well ! here is the lad that will serve them as cheap as 
any in America, and I believe I may say as well too ; for I profess no 
small share of skill in that business. I have kept school eleven winters ; 
and have often had a matter of fifty scholars at a time. I have teached a 
child his letters in a day, and to read in the Psalter in a fortnight ; and I 
always feel very much ashamed, if I use more than a quire of paper in 
larnin a boy to write as well as his master. As for government, I will 
turn my back to no man. I never flog my scholars; for that monstrous 
doctrine of whipping children, which has been so long preached and prac- 
tised by our superstitious forefathers, I have long since exploded. I have 
a rare knack of flattering them into their duty. And this, according to a 
celebrated Doctor at Philadelphia, whose works I have heard of, though I 
never read them, is the grand criterion of school government. It is, 
Landlord, it is the very philosopher's stone. I am told, likewise, that 
this same Doctor does not believe that Solomon and others really meant 
licken, in the proper sense of the word, when they talked so much about 
using the rod, &c. He supposes they meant confining them in dungeons, 
starving them for three or four days at a time, and then giving them a 
portion tartro-maltucks, and such kind of mild punishment. And, zounds ! 

Landlord, I believe he is about half right." 

Columbian Orator, pp. 158, 159. 

The great doctor at Philadelphia was probably Dr. Rush, 
whose opinions certainly wanted one weight — that of being 
permanent. And see how this sublime school-master under- 
stood all about the " the great scale of motives ;" " the ex- 
pulsive power of a new aflection ;" the " higher and more 
refined motives" — "the all but omnipotent influence of 
love and attachment." 

The American Hudibras has poured his scorching ridicule 
on the head of the same folly : — 

" And what can mean your simple whim here, 
To keep her poring on her primer .' 
'T is quite enough for girls to know. 
If she can read a billetdoux, 
Or write a line you'd understand 
Withovit an alphabet o' th' hand. 
What need she learn to write or spell .-' 
A pot-hook scrawl is just as well ; 
It ranks her with the better sort, 
For 't is the reigning mode at court. 



56 

And why should girls be learned or wise ? 
Books only serve to spoil the eyes ; 
The studious eye but faintly twinkles, 
And reading paves the way to wrinkles." 

Trumbull. Progress ofDuluess. Part iii. 

Education is a great concern ; it has often been tampered 
with by vain theorists ; it has suffered much from the stupid 
folly and the delusive wisdom of its treacherous friends ; and 
we hardly know which have injured it most. Our convic- 
tion is, that it has much more to hope from the collected 
wisdom and common prudence of the community, than from 
the suggestions of the individual. Locke injured it by his 
theories, and so did Rousseau, and so did Milton. All their 
plans were too splendid to be true. It is to be advanced 
by conceptions, neither soaring above the clouds, nor grovel- 
ling on the earth, — but by those plain, gradual, productive, 
common-sense improvements, which use may encourage and 
experience suggest. We are in favor of advancement, pro- 
vided it be towards usefulness. We think that the teaching 
of schools ought to be a separate profession ; that normal 
schools may be useful ; that a more thorough and less rapid 
application to the elements of language would be important. 
Take reading, for example ; there are three grades, — first, 
calling the words and minding the stops ; then distinct artic- 
ulation and emphasis ; and, lastly, all those nameless graces, 
which arise from reflecting the passions and giving a full 
representation of the meaning. All these things cannot be 
taught at once — they are three stairs, on each of which the 
pupil must stand awhile before he advances to the next. The 
first is very irksome, the second cannot be very pleasant, the 
third, to an advanced and cultivated mind, may be delightful. 
The same ratio runs through all education. Strait is the gate 
and narrow is the way that leads to earthly knowledge as well 
as to final salvation ; and the kindest thing we can say of the 
man who denies it, is that he mav be an honest deceiver. 



57 

If any reviewer or replicant shall notice our remarks, we 
request it of them as a matter of fairness to impute to us no 
more than we say. We are answerable for our own opinions, 
and not for every reader's deductions ; we trust we have 
found some arguments ; we cannot find brains to understand 
them. We are not for useless severities, nor for useless ob- 
structions in the paths of learning. We would make the 
course as pleasant as possible ; but none make it more hard 
than those vain projectors, who forget the world which God 
has made. They feed us with oranges ; and strew our path 
with the peelings, to trip up our heels, and give us those 
facilities of progression which come at the price of broken 
limbs and a broken head. 

We have uttered our testimony — we have spoken in earn- 
est but not in anger. We love the Secretary, but we hate his 
theories. They stand in the way of all substantial education. 
It is impossible for a sound mind not to hate them. Every 
good man will hate them, in proportion as he reverences truth 
and loves mankind. We hope to see them laid as low in the 
dust as we are. 

For as the bones of the prophet raised the dead man of 
old, so we expect, when these theories fall, we shall rise. 
But not till then. 

Let the world, then, hear the penitent confession of the 
unlucky Thirty-one. With many tears and with all humility 
of mind, we appear to confess, with our mouths in the dust 
where our unhappy lot has cast us, that we have been actu- 
ated by bitter hatred to the opinions of Horace Mann ; and 
this hatred has been too inveterate to be overcome by any 
argument he has offered. It will probably last us for ever; 
we shall carry it with us to our graves. Our experience and 
our observation have only served to confirm it. It has actu- 
ated us in our writings ; and it grows stronger on reflection ; 
and such is the obduracy of our transgression, that we should 
be glad to infect the whole world with our peculiar malice. 



58 

For Mr. Mann himself we wish success to all his schemes 
that do not surpass the powers of nature and are within the 
circle of possibility. 

If he wishes to fly to the moon, we hope he will consider 
the value of his neck, before he sets out. May his life be 
long, honorable and happy. May he drink deep into the cup 
of common sense. May he have all the reward that a grate- 
ful community should give to his midday and midnight ser- 
vices; — and to prove to him that we have no malice to his 
person, we assure him, if we were called to give his character 
in a court of law, it would be in the language of Thomas 
Erskine, on the trial of Hadfield : — "Gentlemen, it has 
pleased God to visit this unhappy man before you ; to shake 
his reason to its citadel, to cause him to build up as realities, 
the most impossible phantoms of the mind, and to be impelled 
by them as motives irresistible ; the whole fabric being noth- 
ing but the unhappy vision of his disease — existing no where 
else — having no foundation in the nature of things." 



POSTSCRIPT. 

Since Meriting our pamphlet, we liave seen the Review in the North 
American. If we were not informed by Mythology, how a unit may 
become a diversit}', the concerted voice of so many journals might be 
positively alarming. 

But we have read of Vishnu and his nine metamorphoses. A society 
for mutual admiration, if not a unit, may at least be less multitudinous 
than the echoing voice of their several trumpets may seem to indicate. 
When a bull of Bashan roars amidst her sounding hills, in perfect 
solitude, the reverberations may seem like a herd, to the distant and 
terrified spectator. 

The Reviewer assumes two points — the modesty of the one to com- 
pensate for the absurdity and presumption of the other. First, that within 
seven years there has been a great reform in our public schools ; and, 
secondly, that Mr. Mann has not done the whole of it. The pride and 



59 

modesty of this exquisite doctrine sounds so exactly like a man talking 
about himself, that, if internal evidence ever produces conviction, it 
must prove, on the present occasion, that a lauded friend may almost 
be a second self. 

We would seriously ask tiiat respectable journal, if they mean to 
endorse, in education, all the Secretary's innovations ? Do they know 
what they say ? Have they weighed the consequences of his improve- 
ments ? Toil a delight, education an amusement ; no emulation ; no 
self-denial; no coercion, and no rod; no elements taught — and yet 
language speedily attained ! Will they pledge their reputation to the 
world, that they believe, or wish to have it thought they believe, that 
Mr. Mann saw all in Europe that his glowing language implies? Is he 
not a much better lawyer than he ever can be a witness ? If the literary 
synod, who conduct the North American Review, will hold a session, and 
answer these questions in the affirmative, we can only sink down [lower 
than we even now are] in reverential silence and dumb astonishment. — 
Shades of the mighty dead ! — Ascham, Busby, Cheever, Moody, Pearson, 
and Bingham — look down from the realms of light, and shower on a 
sentimental, dreamy, degenerate race some few drops of common sense ! 



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